How to earn an extra $65,000 a year from the different rooms of your home

Broke after the Christmas spending frenzy? Want to get yourself a heated helicopter pad like the Kardashian-Wests? Or are you just looking for some more cash coming in? Your home could potentially generate an extra $65,000 a year.

We’re not talking Airbnb, although depending on the type of property you own and its location, you could earn that much per year. The proliferation of peer-to-peer share economy sites, which operate in the same way Airbnb does, means you can now earn money from almost every room of the house, without having to play host to anyone.

If you live in a house with a spare bedroom, a backyard with a pool, own a car and caravan and have some space in your garage, according to the estimates provided by the respective platforms, you could earn an extra $65,000-plus a year. Here’s how:

Hear about Jarrod’s life in the gift economy on Somewhere Else: 

Lounge room

Amount to be made: $19,200 per year

Activity: Pet sitting

If you’re up for feeding, walking and cuddling someone else’s dog, cat, rabbit or any kind of fur-baby, Mad Paws says you can potentially earn an extra $1600 a month pet sitting through them, which is just shy of an extra $20,000 for the year. Paw Shake also offers a similar service.

Backyard

Amount to be made: $9240 per year

Activity: Pool rental

Pool owners often lament that keeping that hole of water out the back clean and chlorinated takes more time and energy than it’s worth. New app Swimply allows pool owners to offset some of the cost by renting it out by the hour. On their website, they gave four examples of what could be earned. Averaged out, that came to $770 per week, so if we say there’s 12 weeks of summer you could pocket an extra $9240.

Attic

Amount to be made: $1300 per year

Activity: Monetise your memory makers

Boards, bikes, snowboards or skis all take up a heap of space, so why not send them out on adventures without you while you’re stuck at work? Quipmo is a travel gear rental marketplace connecting like-minded adventurers. Surfboards are listed at around $25 per day; mountain bikes start at $20 a day and snowboards start around $30 a day. They also list tents, sleeping bags, helmets and other travel-related gear. Even if you only rent out something once a week, that could be an extra $1300 towards your next trip.

Driveway

Amount to be made: $10,000 per year

Activity: Rent out the caravan

Maybe you’re a Grey Nomad needing some time at home for a bit, or simply aren’t getting away with the family as much as you’d like, so that perfectly good caravan is just sitting in the drive collecting spiderwebs. Unlike the squatting arachnids, there’s plenty of people wanting pay for time in a caravan, RV or campervan and Camplify says you could earn up to $10,000 a year renting yours out through them.

Garage

Amount to be made: $860

Activity: Lease your parking spot

At the time of writing the Parkhound website said that 29,279 members had together earned $25,216,215 by renting out unused car parking spots, which averaged out is $860 each. Having someone else park in your car space is not a bad way to generate some easy passive income.

Shed

Amount to be made: $13,000 per year

Activity: Rent out your tools

Capitalise on the DIY craze and rent your tools out. Everything from simple things like wheelbarrows, rakes and power tools through to trailers, cherry pickers and excavators are all listed at “mates rates” on Tool Mates Hire where they estimate you can earn $250 to $600 per week. Even at the lowest end of that scale, that adds up to an extra $13,000 a year.

Car

Amount to be made: $2000 per year

Activity: Their chariot awaits

If your car meets their eligibility criteria, then CarNextDoor are confident that with their 170,000 screened and trusted borrowers you’ll earn at least $2000 in the first year of renting it out through them. And if you don’t? They’ll pay the difference.

Amount to be made: $7200 per year

Activity: Mobile billboard

Wrappli sees the exterior of your car as valuable real estate, so if you want to make money while on the move, you can earn between $200 a month for advertising to be displayed on your back window or side doors and up to $600 a month for a fully “wrapped” car. If you go all in, that’s an extra $7200 a year.

Storage cage

Amount to be made: $4200 per year

Activity: Share space

Spare space is spare cash. Describing themselves as the Airbnb of self storage, Spacer say you can earn up to $4200 a year by listing any unused space you have, so that’s garages, sheds, attics, spare bedrooms, storage cages, driveways or yards – pretty much anywhere someone else can store their stuff.

Other parts of the home to make money from:

Wardrobe: Got a wardrobe full of designer clothes and accessories? Rent them out here

Kids’ room: Make money from all the baby equipment you’re not using for the moment here

Spare bedroom: Host an exchange student and earn a couple of hundred extra each week here

Big backyard: Rent the top paddock out to campers here

Period character: Filmmakers are always looking to hire interesting locations to shoot at, so if your place is quirky, cool or interesting in some way, sign up here or here

Light switch: If you live in Victoria, up until June 2020 you can claim a $50 Power Saving Bonus Payment here